Many terms in Drupal mean little to regular users and beginners. The program jargon should be standardized throughout. For example:

  • "node" is a programmer's term, and should be replaced by "article"
  • "taxonomy" is somewhat pretentious, and should be replaced by "categories".

During the changeover, old jargon can be used with the new, thus: Article (node).

Comments

webchick’s picture

webchick
she/they
Primary language English
Location Vancouver 🇨🇦
commented

Sorry, but no...

"node" refers to any discrete piece of content. Could be an article, could be a poll, could be a customer profile, etc. Replacing it with "article" would very much be a step backwards and be far more confusing for people. There shouldn't be anywhere in the site that the user-facing text refers to it as a "node" though.

and "taxonomy" is /not/ the same thing as categories. We went around and around on this before. Taxonomy is a system of classification, and calling it "categories" is confusing, because it can be used for far more than simple categorization.

I think what would be better approach is simplifying the user interface, improving documentation, and shipping with installation profiles that set some of this stuff up by default so it's more obvious what they mean.

keith.smith’s picture

keith.smith commented
Status: Active » Closed (won't fix)

I appreciate the sentiment, and I'm a very vocal member of the Local 944 of the Grammar Police, as well as a member in good standing of The Consistency Patrol.

"node" is a programmer's term, and should be replaced by "article"

We've had a concerted effort to eliminate the word "node" from user-facing text, except in places where it pretty much has to occur, like the help text for the node module. We typically replace it with either "post" or "content", depending on the context ("article" simply isn't generic enough to work here). If you find an example of "node" in user-facing text (and there probably are some, still), please open a specific bug report.

"taxonomy" is somewhat pretentious, and should be replaced by "categories".

Please, no. We changed taxonomy to categories in some previous versions, and thankfully, have just changed it back in Drupal 6. Taxonomy != categories. Pretentious or not, using "categories" is not as accurate.

iantresman’s picture

iantresman commented

If "node" is any type of content, then call it "content". And perhaps "Categorization system" in instead of "taxonomy". But using vocabulary that means something specific to the few, doesn't help the 95% of users.

keith.smith’s picture

keith.smith commented

Here's at least one of the threads where this was debated recently.

http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/development/2007-November/027400.html

LindenLion’s picture

LindenLion commented

Node is a beautiful word, and if we would use it consistently for the specific thing it is: a neutral name for the main part of a Drupal page, instead of trying to avoid it everywhere we would have far less problems with it...

Node = entity of content (should show up in yellow text balloon when hovering over node anywhere in Drupal and no-one will ever complain again!)

iantresman’s picture

iantresman commented

As a developer, "node" is fine.

As an end-user who has never heard of "content management system", or even "blog", then the word "node" is meanlingless, and Drupal has failed to communicate its capabilities.

LindenLion’s picture

LindenLion commented
  • As a developer, node is essential.
  • As a site builder and maintainer, node is fine.
  • As a site contributor, node is only present in the url.
  • As a site visitor, node is needless and I am for changing node in the url to n (with both node and n working)

BTW: Someone who has never heard of "content management system" should not even think about building a site with Drupal!

More discussion about node: http://drupal.org/node/232697